Investigating the instructional supportiveness of leveled texts

Abstract

S Leveled books originally selected by or produced for use in Reading Recovery or its regular classroom initiative are now also widely used in regular and special classrooms having no affiliation with Reading Recovery. The frequent use of these leveled books in settings other than Reading Recovery raises an important question: Do books leveled for use in Reading Recovery support other reading instructional emphases in addition to the ones that Reading Recovery teachers are trained to provide? The purpose of this study was to examine the curricular dimensions of books leveled for use in Reading Recovery in order to judge how supportive such texts are for early reading instruction emphasizing word recognition or decoding instead of, or in addition to, the three main cueing systems. The study found that Reading Recovery books, as a category of early reading instructional texts, provide only a moderate amount of support for word‐recognition instruction and almost none for decoding instruction in the use of onsets and rimes. The study also found that books leveled for use in Reading Recovery do not consistently increase in word‐level demands as their levels increase. Los libros nivelados, originalmente seleccionados o producidos para su uso en el programa Reading Recovery (Recuperación en Lectura) o en aulas regulares que adoptaban el programa, se usan actualmente en aulas regulares y especiales sin relación alguna con dicho programa. El uso frecuente de estos libros en contextos diferentes del de Reading Recovery introduce una pregunta importante: ¿los libros nivelados para Reading Recovery son adecuados en enfoques didácticos diferentes de aquellos para los que fueron capacitados los docentes de Reading Recovery? El propósito de este estudio es examinar las dimensiones curriculares de los libros nivelados de Reading Recovery con el fin de evaluar el apoyo que proporcionan esos textos en una didáctica de la lectura inicial que enfatiza el reconocimiento de palabras o la decodificación en lugar de, o además de, los tres principales sistemas de pistas. El estudio halló que, como libros de enseñanza de la lectura inicial, los textos de Reading Recovery proporcionan sólo un apoyo moderado a la enseñanza del reconocimiento de palabras y casi ninguno para enseñar decodificación con el uso de ataques y rimas. Asimismo el estudio encontró que en los libros de Reading Recovery no se halla un aumento de las demandas en el nivel de las palabras consistente con el aumento de los niveles. Eingestufte Lesebücher, ursprünglich ausgewählt für oder hergestellt zur Verwendung bei der Leseverbesserung durch Reading Recovery® oder in ihrer regulären Klassenzimmerverwendung, werden jetzt auch weitgehend in regulären und Sonderschulklassen benutzt, die keine Bindung zu Reading Recovery haben. Der häufige Gebrauch dieser eingestuften Lesebücher in andere Bereichen als Reading Recovery wirft eine wichtige Frage auf: Unterstützen Bücher, die zur Verwendung bei Reading Recovery in der Leseverbesserung benutzt werden, andere leseanleit...

Toward a Theoretical Model of Text Complexity for the Early Grades: Learning From the Past, Anticipating the Future

“…Hatcher () found that a sentence‐length measure was a statistically significant predictor of books’ Reading Recovery levels ( r = 0.68). In contrast, James Cunningham et al () found that words or morphemes per T‐unit were both statistically significant predictors of books’ Reading Recovery levels ( r = 0.54/0.53) but that words or morphemes per sentence were not ( r = −0.01/−0.03). The T‐unit is an independent clause plus any dependent clauses attached to it (Hunt, ).…”

“…Unfortunately, integration of word‐level variables is not the case in current texts for beginning readers. Publishers produce stand‐alone texts that are labeled sight‐word readers, decodables, basal stories, and/or leveled texts without systematically integrating frequency, imageability, regularity, or word meaning (J. Cunningham et al, ; Hatcher, ). In that imageability interacts with regularity and frequency (Hargis & Gickling, ; Laing & Hulme, ), imageability likely interacts with word meaning knowledge.…”

“…Hatcher's () measure of sentence length was the number of words in the longest sentence in the 100‐word sample taken from the center of each book. James −Cunningham et al's () two measures of sentence length were the average number of words and −morphemes per sentence computed across all the connected text in each book. Why Hatcher's measure of sentence length would have greater predictive validity than Cunningham et al's is not clear, but the latter measures would seem, at least on face value, to be better indicators of the challenge posed by a book's sentences overall.…”

Beginning Reading Materials: A National Survey of Primary Teachers' Reported Uses and Beliefs

“…In the Cunningham et al (2005) study, Reading Recovery levels did not differentiate labels difficulty based on high-frequency vocabulary or onset-rime decodability. Although teachers have anecdotally noted these issues, they would not have had access to this latest analysis of leveled text at the time of the survey (Brabham & Villaume, 2002;Hicks & Villaume, 2000).…”

Third Graders’ Reading Proficiency Reading Texts Varying in Complexity and Length

“…First, descriptive data related to texts used in guided reading systems such as Reading Recovery (RR) suggest that, from the perspective of experienced clinicians, text length is a factor with beginning and struggling readers. Cunningham et al (2005) found that the number of words in texts was the only variable that predicted level of text on the RR text gradient, a finding corroborated by Hatcher (2000).…”